(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid crystal display.
(b) Description of the Related Art
Liquid crystal displays (LCDs) are one of the most widely used flat panel displays. An LCD includes a pair of panels provided with field-generating electrodes, such as pixel electrodes and a common electrode, and a liquid crystal (LC) layer interposed between the two panels. The LCD displays images by applying voltages to the field-generating electrodes to generate an electric field in the LC layer that determines the orientations of LC molecules therein to adjust polarization of incident light.
An LCD also includes switching elements connected to the respective pixel electrodes, and a plurality of signal lines such as gate lines and data lines for controlling the switching elements and thereby applying voltages to the pixel electrodes.
The liquid crystal display receives an input image signal from an external graphics controller, the input image signal contains luminance information of each pixel PX, and the luminance is represented by gray levels of varying intensity. Each pixel is supplied with the data voltage corresponding to the desired luminance information. The data voltage applied to the pixel appears as a pixel voltage according to a difference between a reference voltage such as a common voltage and the data voltage, and each pixel displays luminance representing a gray of the image signal according to the pixel voltage. Here, the range of the pixel voltage that is applicable to the liquid crystal display is determined according to a driver.
The driver of the liquid crystal display may be mounted on the display panel in a form of a plurality of integrated circuit (IC) chips, or may be installed on a flexible circuit film and attached to the display panel, but the use of IC chips involves a high percentage of the manufacturing cost of the liquid crystal display.